British Airways operate the Heathrow - Miami route out of Terminal 3, so they have a presence in the majority of the airport. But if this is the case, why do they not operate any flights out of Terminal 2?

Being from Florida I have never understood the orphan that are the BA Miami flights. Years ago before T4 all BA 747 flights were through T3, except Miami who was then a Terminal 1. Why can't a flight to some random part of the world BA has limited operations to go from T3, like Barbados where most passenger are from London.

Quoting Jfk777 (Reply 2):Why can't a flight to some random part of the world BA has limited operations to go from T3, like Barbados where most passenger are from London.

Because Barbados is operated from LGW, not LHR...

BA operate a flight from T3 because it gives them voting rights on how that terminal is used and allows them to be an influence in any changes that are made in the future. They most likely retain this because VS are based in T3.

While for years T1 was BA Europe, T2 was other European airlines & T3 was all the intercontinental airlines. When T4 opened in 1987 that changed everything, BA's 747 flights were mostly from T4 but KLM was there too. SAA & El Al moved to T1 as to be away from the other african airlines and because of the pesky Palestinian problem. SAS moved to T3 since it had a huge number of flights to Scandanavia from T2. Now even BA has 747 flights at T1 & more European flights from T4, why I don't know and can't figure out why. LJHR is just one big mess sometimes.

Quoting Steve6666 (Reply 1):Miami was moved to T3 because there were many transfer passengers from Europe missing the connection due to having to get to T4, and presumably lack of space at T1 for a 744.

No, because BA would only want to connect people on their own flights, so unless you expect people to connect from Miami through LHR to Miami it wouldn't be that. I think what you are thinking of is when the LAX, SFO, JNB, NRT and HKG flights were moved to T1 in return for various European flights that went from T1 to T4. This was done to increase ease on connecting flights. Although the Miami flights are currently the only flights from T3, before 9/11, when BA had a LGW-MIA flight and only one daily LHR-MIA flight, BA also operated their LHR-CPT flight from T3

Though it wasn't that long ago that BA flew from T2...although it was only a codeshare with Crossair

Quoting Star_world (Reply 3):BA operate a flight from T3 because it gives them voting rights on how that terminal is used and allows them to be an influence in any changes that are made in the future

They also get to retain gate slots there too, and now the new Terminal plans are known, once all the swapping around happens, they will also be using T3 for a few more flights as it will be the nearest terminal to T5 making connections shorter.

Not so long ago BA flew services to LOS from T3 as well. It was said that part of the reason for those services being there was to ensure the adequate lounge facilities for the many front-end passengers on both those services along with the need to keep a foothold in the terminal used by its largest home-grown rival.

Indeed, the only T2 service BA had in recent years was the codeshared flight to BSL.

Quoting Leezyjet (Reply 10):They also get to retain gate slots there too, and now the new Terminal plans are known, once all the swapping around happens, they will also be using T3 for a few more flights as it will be the nearest terminal to T5 making connections shorter.

Correct, and once T5 is operational and with T3 is occupied by One World Alliance Partners, I have been reliably informed, those Miami slots will be utilised by Qantas.

Quoting Jfk777 (Reply 13):How different can their connection tarffic be then the rest of BA's USA routes ?

It can be very different when they fill what would, on selected days of the week, be otherwise empty economy class seats with 'special' low price offers made through selected European travel agents or through local direct advertising. The advantage of this type of operation is that it can enable the airline to offer more premium class seats on selected routes while filling economy class seats and not diluting its economy class revenue on every day of the week. It can also vary the number of seats sold this way literally from day to day thus maximising revenue and profit.

An extreme example of this practice is the annual BA 'Dreamflight' to MCO for seriously ill and handicapped children. This year the (20th) Dreamflight flew LHR-MCO on 15 October. BA filled the return flight that departed MCO just after midnight on 16 October with one week excursion return flights offered locally in the Orlando area. All the passengers booking at the low, low fares had to return to the US on the aircraft that went to pick up the children just over a week later. In that way everyone gained and no one was disappointed.